“[Co-founder David Everett] and I have never done this work for the rewards, but to be recognised at such a young age with this sort of an honour is amazing,” says Annabelle. “We’re a little shocked to be honest – it wasn’t really expected.”
Annabelle, the organisation’s Founding Director, visited East Africa in 2008 and was alarmed at the number of children in rural areas who couldn’t attend school because it was too far away or too costly, so she decided to build one.
School For Life now educates 300 primary school children, provides more than 100 adults with vocational training and supplies clean drinking water, electricity, community outreach and medical treatment to the more than 1000 residents of Katuuso, in central Uganda. “I’m really excited about the empowerment of communities. We mobilise Ugandans to help themselves from the ground up,”says Annabelle.
Through her work with School For Life, 28-year-old Annabelle impressed The Weekly’s readers to be awarded last year’s Australian Women’s Weekly/Qantas Women of the Future People’s Choice prize. She received a $20,000 scholarship and $10,000 in Qantas flights to help achieve her dream of expanding the organisation’s reach.
With Annabelle’s scholarship win and tireless fundraising efforts, School For Life has big plans for 2015. So far this year, the organisation has enrolled another 80 students at the school in Katuuso.
The foundation’s education program will also be extended to incorporate pre-school students and help bridge the gap between village life and school routines for the youngest pupils. “One of the biggest things we realised was that the kids were coming from a background of no education whatsoever, so teaching them how to read and write, hold pens and even just developing their fine and gross motor skills was taking us more time than we expected,” says Annabelle.
“We’re bringing children in even younger now so that we can start to bridge that gap. To do this, we’re building a pre-school, along with a tailoring centre and assembly hall at our site in Katuuso, which some of the money from The Weekly’s scholarship has gone towards.”
Plans are also underway to construct another primary and secondary school at Bujuuko, the foundation’s second site. Once completed, Annabelle and her team will be providing more than 1800 pre-school, primary and secondary students with a high-quality education.
